The first two articles contain a wealth of data re: US drone strikes in Pakistan from a number of primary reporting organizations. So, they are worth reading for that reason alone.

However, I'm using them here to illustrate the diversity between the reporting organizations in determining who is and who is not a "civilian". In short, the reported data are within the same metadata ball park so far as total persons killed are concerned; but vary dramatically in allocating "civilian" deaths among the total killed.

First, we have A Meta-Study of Drone Strike Casualties (by Ritika Singh, July 22, 2013), describing the three major Western reporting organizations, as well as one organization reporting for 2011 only and another only critiquing the other organizations' reports:

Five studies have played perhaps the most substantial role in shaping the public debate on civilian deaths from drone strikes. The New America Foundation (NAF) and the Long War Journal (LWJ), both based out of Washington DC, have created databases that are cited often by the media, policymakers, and academics. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) has also done work in this space—work challenging the low estimates of its American counterparts. The Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic (CHRC) weighed in on the discussion with a recount of the number of drone strike casualties in Pakistan in 2011, using the data provided by these three organizations. And the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School and the Global Justice Clinic at the NYU School of Law teamed up to conduct an investigation into several aspects of the U.S. targeted killing program in Pakistan and to provide a detailed narrative about the law and the policy behind it for the interested observer. This latter report does not offer estimates of its own, but it does present a critique of the others.
If you are interested, Google Search will take you to their webpages (databases and formal reports).

Here are the bottom lines for the Western big three:

As of this writing, NAF’s casualty counts for Pakistan stand at: 258 to 307 civilians killed, 1,585 to 2,733 militants killed, and 196 to 330 unknown killed. The total number of people killed is 2,039 to 3,370. The rate of the civilian deaths, in other words, ranges between eight and fifteen percent.
...
As of this writing, LWJ claims “2,526 leaders and operatives from Taliban, Al Qaeda, and allied extremist groups” and “153 civilians” have been killed in Pakistan since 2006. This yields a civilian death rate of nearly six percent.
...
As of this writing, BIJ’s number of civilians killed in Pakistan since 2004 runs from 411 to 890 (the number of children killed is 167 to 197). The total killed is between 2,566 and 3,570. This leaves a civilian death rate that ranges greatly—between as low as twelve percent and as high as thirty-five percent.
Note that the totals (adjusted for different reporting periods) are about 3000, plus or minus 500 or so - a fairly low deviation, as opposed to the "civilian" deviations.

For 2011, we can compare four Western studies, with the following results:

Number of Deaths from U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan in 2011

Militants
NAF 303 – 502
LWJ 405
BIJ N.A. category
CHRC 330 – 575

Civilians
NAF 57 – 65
LWJ 30
BIJ 52 – 146
CHRC 72 – 155

Unknown
NAF 32 – 37
N.A. for other three

Total
NAF 392 – 604
LWJ 435
BIJ 447 – 660
CHRC 456 – 661

Civilian Casualty Death Rate
NAF 9% – 17%
LWJ 7%
BIJ 8% – 33%
CHRC 11% – 34%
Again, the metadata tends to center for total persons killed, but diverges as to the percentages of "civilian" deaths especially on the high end.

These data were further refined in the second article, Chris Woods of the BIJ Responds (by Ritika Singh, July 25, 2013). BIA has been a major critic of the Obama administration's drone strike policies - and has alleged a relatively high rate of "civilian" deaths (see above).

In this piece, however, Chris Woods notes the relative metadata centering - as to total persons killed - and adds another report and set of sources:

I found your metastudy extremely interesting—particularly on that question of overlaps [between the estimates of the different counting groups]. What should happen—as data publicly available on the drone strikes improves—is that we might expect convergence on the datasets. That does seem now to be taking place with NAF and BIJ—which are far closer than [they were] a year ago. As you note, being dynamic is the key.

For your general [reference,] Oxford Research Group also did a meta-analysis of datasets back in 2011. BIJ’s data hadn’t been published then; and a number of Pakistan organisations still strove to record casualty data. A different time and different conclusions.
Ririka then added the following comments and chart:

The study Woods draws attention to includes estimates from the New America Foundation and the Long War Journal, but is particularly interesting because it compares numbers from other organizations we almost never consider in this debate—several of which are based in the region: the Conflict Monitoring Centre (CMC), the Institute for Conflict Management’s (ICM), The News, Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), Pakistan Body Count, and Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO).


As the report points out, the numbers of total deaths “tend to converge in the 800s and 900s, with 483 and 1,184 as outliers.” But a range of 2 to 789 civilian casualties in 2010 in Pakistan suggests that the difference between the estimates really may lie in the terminology—not the casualties.
One can easily create a high or low number of "civilians" by simply jinking around with the definition. E.g., this "rule" defining both "civilians" and "combatants" as follows: Everyone is presumed to be a "civilian", unless it appears beyond a reasonable doubt that the person is an immediate lethal threat. What definition one picks is more determined by one's politics and what policies one feels is better for him or her.

The next post will consider two more articles describing an impasse in the USG caused by different politics and policies.

- to be cont. -